Whidbey News-Times

Oak Harbor house shakes after unexpected visitor

A 1978 Ford wound up rolling on to the back porch of K.C. Pohtilla’s home in Oak Harbor Tuesday. No one was injured. / Photo courtesy K.C. Pohtilla

K.C. Pohtilla was so embarrassed by the attention from being grand marshal at last weekend’s St. Patrick’s Day parade that she can’t remember much of the details.

But she’ll never forget what happened three days later.

“It shook the whole house,” she said.

Pohtilla was sitting in a chair in her living room late Tuesday morning when a car struck the rear side of her Oak Harbor home.

The 1978 Ford had rolled unattended from the nearby North Whidbey Help House on S.E. Hathaway Street and wound up settling a short distance on to Skip and K.C. Pohtilla’s back porch.

Although the car knocked out a support post, broke deck boards and struck the house, Skip preferred to focus on the positive.

“Fortunately, nobody was injured,” he said. “The rest of it can be repaired.”

Skip said it was an unfortunate incident, considering the car’s owner was a community member making a donation to the food bank and had left the car running. He wasn’t sure if the car slipped into neutral or into gear, guessing the slight grade could’ve caused it to roll and build momentum.

K.C. said she was grateful she and her husband no longer used that room as their bedroom. She said the headboard of their bed used to rest against the wall that was struck by the car.

She was just happy no one was hurt.

“It was the luck of the Irish that nobody was injured,” she said.

A longtime photojournalist, K.C. never expected an event of this nature to arrive on her back porch. She did what she naturally does at times like this.